SimLeague Hockey Updates

Changes within the last 3303 days...

07/21/2014

The complete downloadable player database has been updated with the 2013-14 players.

07/07/2014

2013-14 Players and teams are ready! We apologize for the delay. Strength of division is a factor, so due to the NHL realignments, we had to rework some of our defensive and goalie formulas. Enjoy and thanks for your patience!

05/07/2013

2012-13 players are now available for SimLeagues! The downloadable player database has also been updated.

04/30/2013

2012-13 SimMatchUp teams and players are available! Give us just a little longer to finalize the SimLeague players. Thanks!

03/14/2013

Added an option to mute owners in hockey league forums. This can be found in the User Preferences page or by clicking the "Mute Owners" link at the bottom of each league's forum.

04/13/2012

The 2011-12 players and teams are now available for SimLeagues and SimMatchUp!

08/16/2011

Fixed a bug in the All-Star goalie selection process. (thanks sidder)

04/12/2011

2010-11 players are now available for SimLeagues & SimMatchUp!

03/08/2011

Fixed issues with records not being saved. If you are in an open league, you break a record and you do not see the records updated within 24 hours of the Stanley Cup playoffs ending, please send us a support ticket. Thanks to all who reported these issues and we apologize for the time it took us to finally isolate the problems!

08/09/2010

Fixed some long overdue issues with draft centre blacklisting.

Blacklists can now contain more than 255 items

Blacklists are no longer deleted when exiting and re-entering the same league

Blacklists are no longer deleted when changing league types while drafting (i.e. changing from starting a new theme league to starting a new dynasty league)

Improved player search performance in leagues with large blacklists

When a team already containing drafted players enters a league with a blacklist, any ineligible players will automatically be removed from the team

Fixed formatting on blacklist-related pages

06/10/2010

Fixed a minor issue with OT losses not always being correctly factored into the "Last 10" record on both the standings and team profile pages (thanks m_christophe).

04/19/2010

Added 2009-10 Players

Several player database corrections, including:
- Red Kelly is now a defender for the correct seasons
- The Steve Smiths playing for Edmonton and Philly in the 80s are now correctly separated
- A combined version of the 1978-79 Bob Murdoch is now available
- Dit Clapper is now a defender for the correct seasons
- Ebbie Goodfellow is now a defender for the correct seasons

03/09/2010

Minor update for progressive/chain league players -- when building your team in the draft centre, the player search can now be sorted by season, in addition to the stat categories that have been previously available. (Thanks aurum)

01/12/2010

A few noteworthy minor updates: We've fixed some problems with NHL Dream Teams drafting (thanks aceemx2) and also fixed some annoying Javascript errors in the draft centre for IE6 and IE7.

11/30/2009

Attention stat-o-holics! We've added a new feature to SimLeague Hockey that easily allows you to convert stats tables into comma separated value (CSV) format for exporting and saving. In the upper-right corner of stats tables, click the green and white CSV icon to switch the table to CSV format. Then highlight the stats portion, copy and paste it into a CSV file. Check it out in any team's profile or the team rankings page once your league has started!

11/11/2009

We have a few minor changes to report. First, we've fixed the bug where finished teams in chained leagues would always show on the My Locker page, no matter how long ago they finished. We've also cleaned up Hockey Dream Teams, showing better stats for hockey players. A bug that didn't clear out the draft board between dynasty league seasons has been fixed. Some style fixes for older browsers have also been added.

09/08/2009

Players of the Month! As you may have noticed recently, your leagues might have headlines about "This Month's Best". We've added a new feature to SimLeague Hockey that will post an article in your league each "month" with the top players (skater, goalie and rookie). We say "month" with quotations because we're equating 8 real life days (16 games) to a month in SimLeague time. So you will see these articles posted every 8 days. Enjoy and as always, thanks for your continued support!

08/31/2009

SimMatchUp Update -- The free NHL SimMatchUp is now using SimEngine 4.0 for its games! This also means you'll see shootouts instead of ties, unless you simulate a game in playoff mode. We've also fixed the page crashes when trying to simulate games with user-created SimLeague teams. This feature should now be working unless the SimLeague team has an invalid roster.

07/30/2009

By request, we've made some changes to the restrictions on the waiver wire. Previously, clones were not allowed to be claimed in any league -- even if it was a theme league which allowed them. So in order to make waiver wire claims more convenient for our theme league users, we've removed that restriction for theme leagues only. Now it will be up to the owners to make sure they follow the rules and the league commish to monitor owner activity. Instead of having to submit a support ticket to allow a clone to be added, now the commish will only need to notify us if someone did not follow the rules.

Also fixed today was a bug where even if your user settings were set to hide completed teams, they still showed up in the team dropdown box which appears on the menu bar. (thanks gooner)

As always, we appreciate your feedback!

07/13/2009

We have released a small update to address some issues. The main part of the update was to enabled the SimLeague Hockey 4.0 feature that allows your fantasy (rookie) players to gain experience while in the minor leagues. This allows them to show improvement even if not on your NHL roster. For every game your team plays, your players in the minors will also play a "minor league game." Two "minor league games" are roughly equal to one NHL game in terms of experience. Another way to look at it would be that fantasy players playing full time at the NHL level will improve twice as fast as they would playing in the minors. However, if you can't find room for them on your NHL roster, it's good to know that they will still gain something out of being in the minors. This change is now in affect for both version 3 and version 4 leagues.
Also noteworthy in today's update was a correction on the font styles in the game summary section of the boxscore page allowing for goals to once again be displayed in bold. Thanks to everyone who submitted tickets about this. Unfortunately a global site font style was changed which unknowingly had an effect on our hockey game's smaller fonts.
Thanks to everyone for your continued support and feedback!

06/29/2009

We wanted to give you an update on some of the issues we've addressed over the past week.

- Shootout: We've corrected the issue where if the home team is winning in the final round of the shoot, they do not have to take their final shot. Updated 7/1: Fixed a bug related to this causing some teams to skip their turn in round 2.

- Shootout: Penalized players at the end of OT are now released from the penalty box and will be able to participate in the shootout unless they are serving a ten-minute misconduct or have been assessed a game misconduct or match penalty (as stated in NHL Official Rule 84.4).

- Fixed a small bug preventing the arena name from appearing on top of the scoreboard (on the boxscore page).

- Fixed some issues with minor league players and the new Match-Up page.

- The "Last 10" record on the league standings should be correcting itself over the next few days.

06/23/2009

We've added a new Playoff Bracket page replacing the old Series and Results page. Enjoy!

06/14/2009

We have added a User Preferences page. It is accessible from the SLH menu on all hockey pages. It is the one-stop place for you to specify how you want certain features of the interface to behave. Your settings will be saved on our system, so no matter where you log in from, they will not change. Previously, some of these settings were stored in cookies which were reset back to their defaults whenever you deleted your cookies or logged into a different computer. Enjoy!

06/03/2009

In the past week since SLH 4.0 has been released, we've been addressing little bugs and style glitches based on your feedback that are common with an update of this magnitude. Today, we updated the Prospect Draft with a few noteworthy changes:

- To address confusion with the draft board, now players you claim will remain on the board and will be highlighted in green. Players on your draft board claimed by another team will change to red as they have been doing since the release of SLH4.

- In Dynasty Leagues, the "Swap" function in the Coach's Office during the draft previously took a player from the draft pool and signed him to your team. Then took a player from your team and put him in the draft pool. This does not make sense because that player was never part of the draft. Now, removed players no long end up in the draft pool, they are removed as they would be if you released them mid-season.

05/26/2009

SimLeague Hockey version 4.0 has been released! Click here for the full scoop!

11/04/2008

We have released an update to the hockey simulator that fixes a bug with line matching (advanced line option). In some games, line matching was happening regardless of the specified settings. Beginning with the 11/4 PM games, this bug is fixed for all leagues using simulator 3.2. Leagues using the older versions of the simulator may still experience this bug. Please note that this update does not affect the way any of your players will perform, it only addresses the line matching bug. Thanks to all who have reported this bug!

10/21/2008

We have released an update to the hockey simulator that fixes a major bug with player shadowing (advanced defensive option). In some games, player shadowing would not have been working correctly -- i.e. shadowing happening before the time frame set or possibly happening even when deactivated in the Coach's Office. Beginning with the 10/21 PM games, this bug is fixed for all leagues using simulator 3.2. Leagues using the older versions of the simulator may still experience this bug. Please note that this update does not affect the way any of your players will perform, it only addresses the player shadowing bug. Thanks to all who have reported this bug over the past months -- it was not easy to track down but we finally got it!

10/20/2008

We've released two updates for SimLeague Hockey based on your feedback. Highlights include:

Added the highly requested 1966-67 Stan Mikita to the game.

Enhanced the Player Shadowing defensive option by adding a list showing which teams have players set to shadow.

09/22/2008

Changed 07-08 Shawn Thornton's position from LW to RW. Changed 07-08 Jeremy Reich's position from LW to C. (thanks dragonlocks).

09/10/2008

06/05/2008

Today we released a few minor fixes and enhancements based on your feedback! Highlights include:

Fixed the "Invite your Friends" feature so that you can easily invite your friends to join your unfilled leagues by clicking the link just below the standings. The process will now be much easier for the people you invite as well!

Fixed the ability to release players past the roster deadline -- where you could drop a player but not pick one up in his place.

Added new options to the automatic goalie resting feature, now giving you more precise control of when your goalie is swapped out.

04/21/2008

SimMatchUp and the SimMatchUp Widget now use the new version of the simulator!

04/18/2008

New and improved sign-up page to make your next hockey purchase a little more informative! :)

04/15/2008

We made some long overdue fixes to the player search page in the Draft Centre. Now you can press the Enter key on any search field and the page will perform the search (even drop-downs)! The loading & saving of searches is now easier and has instructions.

04/09/2008

A significant update to our Hockey games has been released! Highlights include:

Introducing WhatIfSports Hockey Simulator version 3.2! In this new version, we have completely overhauled the offensive side of the simulator. It now looks much closer at players' real life assists in addition to goals to more accurately create offensive scoring opportunities. In the previous versions, drafting players with high assists didn't always pay off. This release opens the door for many more drafting strategies as players with high assists will have much bigger roles on offense!

2007-08 players for SimLeagues

2007-08 players and teams for SimMatchUp and the SimMatchUp Widget

Hockey nows uses the term "salary" instead of "player units" and "money" instead of "units" like our other SimLeague sports, however none of the values associated with players have changed -- just the terminology

Some minor bug fixes

Note: Leagues already in progress will finish with the previous version of the simulator (3.1 or 3.0) and will not be upgraded mid-season. Existing theme leagues wishing to upgrade to the new version may do so if the founder submits a support ticket requesting to use the new version.

03/06/2008

Minor change for Dynasty Leagues. We've fixed the Calder Trophy bug where if the top minor leaguer is signed to a pro contract, he is passed over for the trophy. The only difference you will notice is now the salary updates and signing of minor leaguers to pro contracts will not happen as soon as the season ends. It will occur just before the first round of the draft. This will not affect any users because you don't have any new rookies to sign until after the first round anyway.

01/23/2008

New, up-to-date downloadable Excel file of the player database is now available on the Theme Options screen when starting a theme league. You can also download it here.

12/14/2007

Released a new version of League Tools, which are a collection of useful tools for theme league founders. The new version allows you to adjust the standings of your league. This is something theme founders often submit tickets for when owners violate the league rules. Submitting a ticket is no longer needed! To use the tools, look in your League Office under the theme details and you will see a new option called "League Tools!"

11/07/2007

A collection of improvements has been release for the SimLeague Hockey game. These changes have been applied to all leagues since none of them will change the way your team plays. The update includes:

Game Winning Goals are now tracked with player stats! *

Removed many restrictions on Exhibition Leagues

Player energy and injury status are now available on the trade screens

Waiver Wire screen now shows your team's budget

Auto goalie swap notifications now include team name and league number

Auto goalie swap notifications can now be turned off

Fixed some bugs with line matching options

Fixed roster bugs with player trading

Many more minor bug fixes

* Game Winning Goals can only be tracked from the point of this release going forward. This stat is not available for past games.

07/18/2007

SimMatchUp is now using the new player database!

07/17/2007

A major update to the player database has been released. This update includes new salaries and improved performances for the older generations of players.

Prior to 1998, the NHL didn't track face off stats and prior to 1967, shots, shooting %, and +/- were not tracked. For goalies, prior to 1982, shots against and save % were not tracked. So to fill the gaps in the older players' stats, we approximated these values and we admit we could have done a much better job. So we went through the entire database and reevaluated all of the approximated values. With the new values, you will now see older generation players being more competitive with the newer generations of players, instead of just being average at best.

In addition to statistical changes, we introduced a new salary formula to more appropriately price players such as Joe Malone that were drafted frequently. On the overall average, salaries came down a little. This should help open up a wider range of affordable players.

With new salaries and a wider selection of competitive players, we are confident that this will improve the enjoyment of the game and keep things fresh as well as help reduce the cookie cutter teams.

In addition to the SimLeagues, our SimMatchUp product will also benefit from this. Not only will the older teams play better in general, but now that we offer combined versions of players traded mid season, we can replace all of the partial season versions of players will their full season stats to more accurately simulate their performances.

*** It is important to note that these changes will not affect leagues already in progress (meaning any leagues that were full prior to 4PM ET on Monday, July 16), it only affects teams drafted after the update! ***

06/28/2007

We have updated the WIS Fair Play Guidelines. Please see the updated version here.

05/02/2007

Random division realignments are now done automatically for open leagues!

04/23/2007

2006-07 Teams are now available for SimMatchUp!

2006-07 Players are now available for SimLeague play!

03/13/2007

We have modified the hidden roster change we made on 3/2. Now, it does not apply to theme leagues!

03/02/2007

Team rosters are now hidden from other users in your league until the season begins. This much-requested new privacy feature helps prevent people from joining leagues, looking at the rosters of the the other teams, and leaving the league to make roster changes. It is important to note that theme league founders WILL still be able to see all rosters at any time.

02/12/2007

Dynasty Leagues Updates -- we've made a small change to the way salaries are evaluated at the end of each season. Since fantasy players have no real life expectations to live up to and constantly improve in skill (skills never decrease), we've decided that their salaries can no longer decrease between seasons. They will either stay the same or increase based on performance. Real players will still have a salary reduction between seasons if they do not perform up to their real life expectations. Remember, this only affects fantasy players in Dynasty Leagues! We've also added some small graphics to the Financial Info page in the GM's Office to make it easier to see who has increased and decreased between seasons.

01/26/2007

Added an RSS feed for your recent games! Most newer web browsers support RSS feeds. If you've recently upgraded to Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox, you can easily subscribe to our feed and know exactly when your games are played (don't worry, we don't give away the score in case you like to read the PBP first). See the bottom of the hockey Team Center for more info!

01/02/2007

Fixed problems with the automatic goalie swapping feature. Now it should function as intended for all teams and only swap your starter out if he falls below the specified energy level.

12/11/2006

Changed prospect policies for Dynasty Leagues. Now, if a prospect is traded during the season, as long as his combined GP is greater or equal to 20, he will be signed as a pro player and his salary will be adjusted accordingly. Previously, he had to have played 20 games with the team he finished the season on.

11/29/2006

Fixed several minor bugs including ejected players showing up for the wrong team in the box scores, incorrect lines listed as "matching" in the play-by-play, and the play-by-play text for periods 2 & 3 showing up in blue in Internet Explorer 6 & 7.

11/28/2006

Added All-Star Rosters! Now, listed after game 41 on your schedule, you'll find an All-Star Game. Once your league has played 41 games, this will become a link. Clicking it will show the complete All-Star rosters for the Clarence Campbell and Prince of Wales conferences! As of 11/28/06, all leagues that have played 41 or more games will have an All-Star Game available on the schedule. Note that no game is actually played for this feature, only rosters are created.

10/13/2006

Draft Centre Update -- now when searching the players for your "Any" slots, you can search by position in the "General Criteria" section!

10/12/2006

The automatic goalie swapping option now sends you a SiteMail message when it swaps your goalie.

10/11/2006

Released an update to address a few issues and to start tracking time of possession. All box scores beginning with the 10/11 PM games will include time of possession for each team. This is another way to gauge your defense. The update also addresses some bugs with injuries and suspensions not showing up in the game notes, an issue with the backup goalie sometimes starting a game, keeping previous stats when players are traded and some other minor fixes.

09/25/2006

Owners can now rename their teams. Renaming is only permitted before league play begins and can be done in the Team Center.

Teams using any of the above players will be able to finish the season with them, however they are no longer draftable as of 8/29.

08/28/2006

Game of the Week is back for SimLeague Hockey! Check the Team Center (near the bottom) for each week's game.

08/21/2006

Fixed issues with lines not changing for excessive amounts of time when the line matching feature was enabled (thanks rammers and corbs1019). Also fixed an issue that sometimes caused Scoring Line 1 to play after a penalty, no matter what point of the line rotation the team was at before the penalty.

08/16/2006

08/04/2006

06/01/2006

Added combined players to the database. Any player that played for two or more teams in a single season will now have a combined stats version also available for each team he player for that season. The Draft Centre has been updated to allow you to target these players (as well as other types) in your searches. See the "General Criteria" section of the player search page for more info.

05/18/2006

Released the new Draft Centre! We've taken all of your feedback and put it into this new version. There are tons of new features to make your drafting experience more efficient and more enjoyable! Click here for a brief tutorial of what's new!

04/27/2006

The 2005-06 teams are now available for SimMatchUp!

04/24/2006

The 2005-06 players are now available for SimLeagues!

04/12/2006

Improved logic around the line matching feature. Also fixed a problem where line matching would sometimes cause only a two line rotation to be used. The play-by-play (when viewing line changes) now denotes when a line is used for matching. This update will be in place for the 4/12 AM games.